Bioafrican Pavilion at BioFach

At Biofach 2012, the Bioafrican Pavilion, in Hall 4, stand No. 4-445 and 4-446, will host organic companies from Africa under the theme: Treasures of Africa. The Bioafrican Pavilion is an initiative by the National Organic Movements of Africa, aimed at taking international market opportunities at BioFach, for their certified organic exporters and producers. The pavilion has its secretariat hosted by the National Organic Agricultural Movement of Uganda (NOGAMU), a Business Support Organisation which brings together all actors in the Ugandan organic sector towards organic agricultural development.

NOGAMU's major role lies in linking its members to organic markets with a special focus on ensuring increased incomes and improved livelihoods through the adaption of organic farming.  Over the last decade, with the support of partners like Hivos, the Swedish Development Agency (SIDA), The Belgian Development Agency (BTC), he Centre for the Promotion of imports from developing countries (CBI), the International Trade Centre of the UN (ITC), UNCTAD, aBi Trust, and the Private Sector Foundation of Uganda (PSFU), NOGAMU has been organising the participation of Ugandan organic exporters to BioFach and other major international trade fairs in Europe, America, Japan and the Middle East and has registered an impressive growth in the Ugandan organic sector.
 

African exhibitors will showcase high quality certified organic and fairtrade products made by small holder farmers, most of whom are rural women from Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Zambia, Ghana and Mozambique. Products range from fresh and processed fruits and vegetables to coffee, cocoa, sesame, vanilla, cardamom, black pepper, Bird eye chilies, ginger, Shea butter, honey and other bee products, essential oils, and herbs, from example.
 

The organic movements behind the Bioafrican pavilion at Biofach 2012 include the Tanzania Organic Agricultural Movement (TOAM), Kenya Organic Agriculture Network (KOAN), Rwanda Organic Agriculture Movement (ROAM), NOGAMU, GOAN and OPPAZ. Others include movements in Mozambique, Ethiopia and Burundi. These membership based organisations offer their members specialised services in organic and fairtrade marketing, quality management systems and certification as well as training, policy and advocacy. After the founding of these movements with support from programmes like the Export Promotion of Organic Products from Africa (EPOPA) funded by SIDA (managed by Grolink and AgroEco Luis Bolk Institute), the African organic sector has been growing (and continues to do so) from strength to strength. A lot of capacity has been built in the region to promote organic products on the international markets.
 

National Organic Agricultural Movement of Uganda